he was leaning into the debate when president obama was a little bit more laid back. i think he was able to be aggressive without being offensive. so, even though there were -- i didn't see any knockout punches. no breakthrough moments or major mistakes. i think governor romney will get the boost that challengers usually get. the big question, did he do anything to dramatically change the trajectory of the race? >> well, just some of what you are telling us from home and you are sending us torrents of e-mails tonight, somebody has said, you know, this is a debate you needed a calculator to follow in the first 25 minutes. a lot of numbers thrown out there and just for the record, the biggest number of tweets so far on big bird, but we'll get back to that in a moment. i want to turn to matthew dowd, a key strategist for both sides of the aisle, at different points in his life. is george right? >> well, i think this -- we all try to make comparisons to these races to previous presintial races and this race has been so eerily familiar to 2004 and tonight was another examp